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(wind whistling)

- We've been doing
this for millennia.

When I say millennia,
that means more than one.

No Western concept of
conservation is that old.

(soft music)

People like Muir and these
other conservationists,

Leopold, they just thought
nobody lived out here,

a wilderness as a wilderness.

That's not true.

We've been in this
part of the country

for thousands of
thousands of years.

We know how to manage
natural resources,

and we need to talk about it.

We need the true
history of America.

(soft orchestral music)

- If we look at the quandary
that we find ourselves in today

throughout the West,
we have ever increasing

size and scale and
intensity of wildfire.

Humans have excluded fire
from this natural system

and have created unnatural
conditions as a result.

Fire is our relation, and
we need to work with fire.

- Indigenous people
of this country

for a very long time, they've
been managing the land,

using cultural indicators,
using cultural knowledge,

using traditional stories,
doing prescribed fire,

using what they know is
good for their places.

(soft orchestral music)

(bird whistling)

- Part of what's
wrong with America

is that people
don't understand that
these forests

that they aspire to pre-European

were really a result
of Native Americans...

understanding the natural
cycles that occur out there.

(soft orchestral music)

(buffalo herd rumbling)

- As far as Indian people,
buffalo in all their history,

they were our economy, they
were our food, our clothing.

Then killed to near extinction.

So bringing these animals
back, not only are they healthy

for eating but also
for our spirituality

and a big part of our culture,
just making us whole again.

It's a healing in that way also.

(soft orchestral music)

- Part of what they
didn't understand,

the original
English
expeditions,

was that what they were
looking at was in nature.

It's nature in relationship
with humans over 1,000 years.

- [Leaf] The fact that we're
still here today in any form...

is a testament
to adaptation
and resilience.

(crickets chirping)

- My name is Michael
Kotutwa Johnson.

I'm a member of the Hopi tribe.

We're located up
in Northern Arizona

about 90
miles northeast of
Flagstaff.

We live in what they
call a semi-arid climate.

It's right in the middle
of a big drought period,

what they call extreme drought.

After my grandfather passed
away, I started getting seeds

from different people out
here, and I started planting.

Then what I did was I
opened up more fields,

because I wanted to plant more

and increase the supply
of corn that we had.

And you can see...

some of our beans
that I had planted...

are doing pretty good down here.

They're starting to
come up pretty good.

These are called hatico.
They're brown lima beans.

So they're doing pretty good.

They look pretty strong,

'cause there's so much
moisture in the ground.

No irrigation, folks.

(soft instrumental music)

And you can see in certain spots

the corn is starting to come
up from about a foot depth.

So in about a week, these
will really be showing

really good here.

You know what I
mean? Really good.

It's a good day today,

because you can see
from these little ones,

they've got little dew
drops on them right here.

These are our children.

In the Hopi way these
are our children.

So today it's a good day,
because I'm a daddy. (laughing)

(soft instrumental music)

(birds chirps)

(metal clinking)

I've had my own problems in
my life like everybody else.

Alcohol was my Achilles
heel for the longest time,

and I found a way to...

dispose of that.

But I found a way out
here to deal with that.

When I was little boy,
being dropped off out here

spending some summers out
here with my grandfather,

I learned a lot.

But as I got older and I
went through all my lifecycle

and all my drinking and stuff,

I was able to come out of that.

And only came out of that
because I got back into

what I really love and enjoy.

And I feel like a lot
of people out here,

if they would get back into
farming and learn from this,

they wouldn't have near as
big of a problem out here.

(soft instrumental music)

- Tradition tells us
that we must have corn.

So corn has been the main
staple for the Hopi people.

You have to have three
years' supply of corn.

Three years' supply of corn,

because usually a drought
lasts about three years

And we've had some
droughts out here.

The tradition was that
their father was a farmer,

and he would make the
kids grow up farming.

Start them hoeing, planting
with a planting stick.

And every kid grew
up on the farm.

Today, no
kid grows up
on a farm,

because their parents
stopped farming.

If you don't farm
and grow your food,

you lose your independence.

But if you're farming and
growing your own food,

you don't need the government.

So you're independent.

- The Hopi farming, to
me, the destruction,

in just
looking back at our
history,

was just
the introduction
of cattle.

The federal government came in,

and they thought that we
could use these cattle

and as a way to...

do better.

What it started to do

by bringing in these
livestock animals,

it started bringing
in the concept

of what they call privatization.

So people felt
like they owned it.

It wasn't shared as readily
as you would a crop,

and therefore you had a
concept of privatization,

which, in my mind, broke
down a lot of our society,

a lot of our community
bonds with each other.

In a drought year like we've
had the last two years,

there's no way they can survive,

so you wind up just drastically
cutting back their herds,

people selling their cattle.

I'm out here just trying
to not change the system,

but I'm trying to
hold on to the system

That's been existing
for over 2,000 years

and to
encourage people to keep
farming.

(crickets chirping)

So these are just some of
the varieties that we raise.

I would have to say this
is probably America's

original sweet
corn variety here,

because this type of seed
is what they would find

in some of
these prehistoric
dwellings.

This is a red variety.

And this is a purple,
like a violet variety.

These are just our blue
corn varieties here.

We create about 42 different
types of dishes from Hopi corn,

everything from
puddings to soups.

This is our blood in a lot
of ways. This is who we are.

When I was
at Cornell
University,

when I talked about my corn,

they said that I
needed 33 inches of annual
rainfall a year.

Okay? They're planting
depths were an inch.

Our planting depths, because
of the way our corn is,

because that's where
the moisture is at,

can go anywhere from
two feet all the way up.

Over time, they've adapted.

They have what they
call a growing region

called an epicotyl.

It's the
initial growing point
comes out,

and it's elongated.

It has an elongated epicotyl,
so it comes up from that.

Whereas in hybrid
corn, it's only about

probably about an
inch growing region.

Ours is about two feet.
It can probably go longer.

I would imagine if I
put it down four feet,

it would still come up.

(beans rattling)

(soft instrumental music)

Dry land farming
means that basically

you don't use irrigation.

We don't believe in irrigation.

That's why these varieties
are so drought-tolerant,

because we don't irrigate.

This is where I have my beans.

You can see some of the beans

that are starting
to pop up out here.

These white lima beans.

(digging)

Were clearing it down to
where it gets moisture

Five Lima bean seeds
in there or so.

These are like super seeds,
you know? They've very tough.

They're like us, and so,
because they're like us,

they survive like us.

Limited amount of water,

a lot of nurturing,
a lot of caring,

a lot of community building.

This is about a foot.

Conventional agriculture
goes to about right here.

That's what your planter is
designed to go down an inch.

That's it.

(digging)

Our early corn, we put in early

to coincide with
our home dances.

That'd be sweet corn, yellow
corn, different varieties.

We don't get any rains here

all the way from
usually from April

all the way till the monsoon,

which is the last week in July.

For us to grow things
with only six to 10 inches

of annual precipitation
is amazing.

(soft music)

This year I put in about six
different varieties of corn.

You've got to grow
them out every year.

You try to go at least
one row out every year,

because the climate changes,

and so, unless you do that,
these plants won't adapt,

they won't change.

And when we're going
through climate change

throughout the globe, we need
to have that biodiversity,

because biodiversity
can react and can adapt,

just like we should, but
they know how to do that.

Those little seedlings
know how to do that.

We as human beings are
forgetting how to do that.

These are the new generation.

These have been geared to adapt

to what they call
climate change.

(soft instrumental music)

(river babbling)

(speaking in Karuk language)

- This right here
is our country.

This is where we
were born and raised,

just like our long
ago people were.

Our religion
is survival in
this place.

Living in this place for
countless generations,

thousand of years.

It's hard to say
it's a religion.

It's really management practices

that have evolved in
this place to survive.

And fire, in our
creation stories,

there's always a recognition
that fire has always been here,

it's always been a part of us.

(soft instrumental music)

- The Karuk people have lived
here for thousands of years.

And acorns for
native people here

were a staple of their life...

of their diet,
that was deer meat

and all of these plants
that are around us

that yield different edible
resources throughout the year.

So in order to have those
resources at a predictable time,

in a predictable quantity,
in a predictable area,

you needed to have a handle on
manipulating that vegetation

to inhibit the plants
you didn't want there

and to encourage and
basically fertilize

the plants that
you did want there.

A lot of the burning
had been done by women

from a two mile radius
around the village site.

And that was to produce
a fine grain mosaic

being oak woodlands
and grasslands.

- They put fire on the
ground, underneath the trees

to burn up old acorns
and leaves and duff

to make it easier to pick
the acorns when they fall.

Also that smoke, putting that
smoke up into the canopy...

suppresses the bugs.

What those women
essentially were doing

besides enhancing food
sources, basketry resources,

all the things that
you needed to survive,

at the same time, they
were eliminating the risk

of wildfire
to their
communities.

Fires don't burn in the black,
where fire has already been.

That's how you put out
fires with backfires.

When a wild fire
hits it, it goes out,

because it runs out of fuel.

When you have this constant,
regular, low intensity fire

being put on the landscape
at this community scale,

not a firefighting force,

not anybody going out
there to fight fire.

Nobody was fighting anything.

They were working with fire

to enhance resources and
protect their community.

(somber music)

- Fire suppression and exclusion
with first colonization,

diseases that decimated
native populations,

that limited severely
there number of ignitions

and the complexity
of their stewardship

and
agroforestry systems around
fire use.

And then you had settlement,

whether there
was direct
displacement,

native people being removed
out of their villages,

put on reservations
and other rancherias.

Then you had the destruction
of that cultural fire regime.

And then following
that initial period
of colonization,

then there was a
very strong emphasis

on suppressing all fires.

Whether they were lightning
or they were arson

or un-permitted ignitions,

they were to
be suppressed in
the interest

of timber resources and
protection of communities.

(somber music)

- [Leaf] Suppressing
wildfire or any fire

was a really a policy mandate

of those early
first rangers here.

They arrested people,
put people in jail.

So those ceremonial
practices, the ritual fire

that was part of our annual
world renewal ceremony

was outlawed and people
were put in jail for it.

(spirited music)

- [Narrator] Wood for war!

The Navy needs wood.

They Air Forces need wood
for troop-carrying gliders.

We all need our forests,

but the forest have a vicious
public enemy number one!

Fire, ruthless,
devastating
forest fire

wiping out home, destroying
critical war materials,

taking its annual toll of lives!

- [Leaf] We have 100
years of scaring people

about the evil effects of
fire and how fire is evil.

Smokey Bear, one of the most
effective propaganda campaigns

that the world has ever known,

has done such a good job
of instilling fear of fire

in the general populace.

- [Leaf] And now you
have a condition where

we essentially haven't had fire,

and then with increasing
climatic conditions

of temperatures, densification
and build up a fuels,

drought stressed, high
fuel load, very dry forest,

We see many
conditions
in the West

and particularly in California
and Southwest Oregon

that now we're saying we're
having catastrophic fires

or fires that are larger
in extent and severity,

more extensive and more damaging

than has ever been
in recorded history.

But it's all built
around fighting.

Fighting fire, it's not
a fight you can win,

and it's not
something
that people

should be trying to fight.

How can we engage with fire?

How can we embrace
fire as a partner?

Because that's what it is.
It's the best partner we have.

(clunking)

(chattering)

- My grandfather, he
would kind of know,

"Oh, I feel like I'm gonna
burn today. It feels right."

I remember as a kid growing up

and being like, "Is
today a good burn day?"

And he'd be like,
"No, it's too wet,"

or like, "No, not yet."

And then he'd start feeling
like you could just...

He'd go out and he'd be like,

"I think today's
a good burn day."

And he'd go out and
he'd light a fire.

And then sometimes it
wouldn't go how he wanted,

so he'd stop.

And then he'd go back
in a few more days,

maybe he tried again,
and maybe it was good,

so he'd go for it.

(light instrumental music)

This is the Panamnik
Tishawnik village area.

We swim here. We fish here.

We...

We gather here ceremonially

for the deerskin dances,
for all the other dances

that we've all kind of
come to our whole lives.

And this is all on your mind

when you're standing just
in this one spot. (laughing)

(fire crackling)

Traditionally, this place
would have been burned...

for many reasons, for gathering,

for basket weaving
materials,
cultural reasons.

In the larger picture
of the country today,

with a lot of these larger
wildfires happening,

you can use cultural knowledge

to drive a lot of these
management practices

that tie directly
into protection and
wildfire instances.

There's a lot
of history in
these places,

and there's a lot
of history in places

for my family as well.

My sister lives here
at the end of the road

on the same residence
where my grandma was raised

and her parents lived.

I know that people on
this lane, especially,

are really excited for
the burning to happen,

because they did experience
the Dance Fire back in 2013.

I was at my sister's house
when the fire started.

We were cracking acorns
in her living room.

And as soon as I walked
out on the porch,

there was just like this wall
of flames across the street.

And it was already
in the canopies

of all the Doug firs
across the street.

(somber music)

- It was such a terrible year.

We had like hardly any rain,
no snow big time before.

So it just took off. It
came straight at our house.

This little bitty bit of
cleared land right here

is what stopped the fire from
taking all these other houses.

A lot of people
were like, "Dang,

if you guys hadn't cleared your
property out before the fire

it probably would've lost
the whole neighborhood.

And so we were like
we were really lucky

because the tribe helped
us do that at the time too,

otherwise we wouldn't have been
able to do it by ourselves,

because I was like
nine months pregnant

when we bought the
property. (chuckles)

I wasn't much help to
anybody at the time.

So it's really good to
see controlled burns.

And then, yeah, one crew can
take care of a whole area,

versus having an army
of firefighters coming,

fighting a fire.

I mean, when it
gets to that point,

yes, we gotta do,

but you don't need to
let it get to that point.

(fire crackling)

Personally, I'm a
clinical social worker,

and a lot of what I deal with
with a lot of native people,

we have a lot of trauma.

We have really high rates
of suicide and depression,

and a lot of that has to
do with the disruption

of our culture and
our religions and
our way of living.

And a lot of our
problems that we have

with the weather and climate
change and everything

is because of the
same disruption,

the same disruption of
trying to make something fit

a certain kind of box.

And I think that's how a
lot of Western cultures

have been
with non-Western
cultures,

and I think that's how they've
kind of been with nature.

And so I think it's time
to to learn from each other

and meld better and bow
to each other's knowledge

in certain areas.

(river babbling)

- We use fire for a lot
of things in ceremony,

creating a ripple that calls
the salmon up the river.

The top of Black Mountain
that would burn off,

it drains into the
Camp Creek watershed.

And so at that time of year,

you're kind of at one
of the warmest periods

for the river temperatures,

and so when you burn
off the understory

and the small plants,

you no longer have things
using that surface water,

so you have more cold
water groundwater inputs

into your streams.

The smoke in the air
reduces the heat,

the radiant heat from
the sun on the water,

and so that contributes
to colder temperatures

in the river as well.

And so just these
little minute changes

that happened based
on the human activity

in this ceremony of
lighting that mountain

actually has scientifically
valid connections

to calling the
fish up the river.

(soft music)

- Our religion
we practice is
Pic-ya-wish,

translated as "world renewal".

So the Karuk people were
fix-the-world people.

Today, we're gonna go
down and we're gonna fish

in Ishi Pishi Falls.

It's very...

It's very romantic in
some people's eyes,

very frustrating and others'.

I'm both of those.

I love it, that's
my way of life,

but the health of the river

runs parallel with the
health of the people.

We need to put to action,

the physical actions
on the landscape.

We've got to
start cleaning the
sacred trails.

We've got to start igniting

and cleaning the
forest once again.

Everything we do in our world
the salmon benefits from.

(soft orchestral music)

- So in our tribal ceremony
is to fix the world.

It's not just to
fixed this creek

or fix our family
or fix our river.

We want to fix the whole world,

because if things
are wrong here,

they're wrong on the other
side of the world too.

That's just the way the
world works on the balance.

So in our tribe, we knew that
in fix the world ceremony,

Pic-ya-wish, even a small group
of people with great energy,

great focus and pure thought

can actually trigger
the world, the earth,

and put it back on its balance.

(fire crackling)

(wind whistling)

(chanting in foreign
language) (steady drumming)

(crowd cheering)

(calm music)

(wind billowing)

- So we've brought buffalo
back here at Blackfeet.

I think in 1974, we started to
restore animals back to here.

And there wasn't a real big...

Interest, and I guess
because buffalo had been gone

from our culture for so long,

being almost hunted
to near extinction.

So the biggest part
of why our people...

have never seen them.

So after they were killed
to near extinction,

making way for cattle for this
country, things were lost.

Our language, our
way of religion...

losing land.

These animals here
are my passion,

bringing these animals back

and returning that
part of our culture.

My name is Ervin Carlson,

and I'm a member of
the Blackfeet Nation

and President of
the InterTribal
Buffalo Council.

I'm here today to respectfully
urge passage of H.R. 5153,

the Indian Buffalo
Management Act,

to create a permanent
tribal buffalo

restoration and
management program

within the Department
of the Interior.

Buffalo are sacred
to American Indians.

Historical records indicate
that American Indians

relied heavily on
buffalo for survival.

Buffalo provided
us food, shelter,

clothing and essential tools.

In the early 1800s,
the buffalo population

in North America
exceeded 30 million,

and the American
Indian population was near
seven million.

The military systematically
eliminated buffalo

to eliminate the Indians.

In addition, westward expansion

and the greed of
non-Indian
buffalo hunters

reduced the buffalo
population to 500

and the
Indian population to
250,000

by the turn of the century.

With confinement of Indians
to reservation lands,

Indians had lost their
primary food source,

lifestyle and independence.

In 1991, a handful
of Indian tribes

organized the InterTribal
Bison Cooperative

to begin restoration of
buffalo to Indian tribes.

Today, the ITBC is
comprised of 69 tribes

across 19 States with
55 buffalo herds,

collectively the largest
herd in the United States.

The buffalo are very good
stewards of the land.

They're a naturally
migrating animal.

They don't just to stay
in one area and overgraze.

They're naturally migrating.

If they get enough room to roam,

they'll move from area to area.

The cattle and the other
animals, they'll overgraze

if you keep them only
in one area too long.

So you don't have to
take care of them.

They take care of themselves.
They're very hardy animals.

And we just had a real
severe winter this past year.

A lot of cattle were lost.

But we didn't lose any
buffalo to that weather.

They just maintain, and
they'll just turn their heads

into the storm and go
to it, and they don't...

turn away and turn their
tails into the storm

like domestic animals will.

- You think about the buffalo

being the biggest
climate change adapter

as an animal in the world,
and I mean for centuries

and thousands and
thousands of years.

Now we're in an age that they're
gonna have to adapt to this

and they can easily adapt
because of their hair.

Their hair is so different
than a cow hide, right?

It's four times more thick,

but they also grow more
hair for the winter.

Then they shed it
for the summer.

And so it's just a natural
insulator both ways.

If you look at it economically,
how many cattle do you lose?

How much more feed do
you have to feed the cow

compared to a buffalo?

And then the water
situation too.

A buffalo can go two and a
half days without drinking.

So they're just so
much more resilient.

(soft music)

- Today we're gonna
move them animals

to the north side
of the pasture.

(buffalo herd rumbling)

Like I say, them being gone
so long, it was a real...

reeducating our own people...

to the animal.

And it never really, really
took off until, I would say,

in the past eight
years we started the...

Iinnii Project.

Iinnii is the Blackfeet
word for buffalo.

And we started having dialogues,

meeting with elders, meeting
with our young people,

and just talking about
the return of buffalo.

(children shouting and laughing)

(soft music)

(speaking in Blackfeet)

- I really learned in my life

that if we were to teach
our young anything,

it had to be hands-on, it
couldn't be from a book,

and it couldn't be from lecture.

They had to participate
in actively.

You could prepare them,

but they had to actually
participate in it.

So the students...

in the grades
from kindergarten to
the 12th grade,

there was many needs
that the students had,

and their tribal identity

was one of the most
strongest need there was.

(chattering)

And they...

just took to it like
a duck to water.

They wanted to know everything.

(laughing and chattering)

- Our sister tribes
is Kainai and Siksika.

And so none of them
have a buffalo herd.

So I started asking some
of that elder ladies,

who I thought would
probably have known

how to butcher a buffalo.

And I said, "Have you guys ever
been to a buffalo harvest?"

And they're like, "No,
this is our first one."

And that was kinda
heartbreaking to me,

that that was their first one,

and they're like 80 years old.

So that whole generations
of not been able

to even be part of that buffalo.

(delicate music)

(children shouting)

- We have these
songs with us yet.

We may not have
the
ceremonies...

but the songs are still with us.

And we need people
know these songs.

Because we're not going
to be around all the time.

I'm 90 years old,

and I don't expect to
be here another year.

Of our creator we ask
to be with us today.

Our ancestors, our
people in the past

have left us some
things to follow.

(shouting)

We asked that you
will direct us.

(chanting)

[Ervin] These animals took
care of us in our beginning,

in the old way.

And now, in a new way, they're
also taking care of us.

And so we take care of them.

(Singing in Blackfeet)

(bids chirping)

- We're on the University
of Arizona campus.

I'll be doing my
PhD defense tomorrow

to get to be a doctor in
philosophy in natural resources.

(soft music)

I've been over here a
little over 12 years now,

and it's been a long road
for a number of reasons,

most of them personal.

But what motivated
me to get here

was I was wondering
why we weren't able

to use our
own conservation
techniques.

I'm a 200 generation farmer.
200 generation farmer.

You know?

And so alls I'm doing here is
I'm learning a new language.

I'm learning how to speak

in the language that
I've been taught here

so that I'm able
to have the people

on this side of the fence
understand where I'm coming from

and at the same time
take some of the goodness

that I see in science and
bring it back home too.

It's a tough transition for me,

and it's a tough transition
for a lot of Native Americans

who wish to go into
the sciences,
because there's this...

constant tensions that
exist within yourself.

You want to help,
but at the same time

you do not want to
exploit your culture.

And so it's a balancing act.

Is that on there?

Let me see. Come on up.

It's not coming up.

(chattering)

I wanted to
start off this
presentation

by first giving you some-

Ask you to take some seeds
off of this corn right here.

What you're holding here is
not just corn, but it's life.

This is the roadmap
that we're gonna follow.

And this particular
map right here

is called Hopi Prophecy Rock.

This is the world that
we currently live in.

And you'll a bunch of
people going this way

up this path right here, and
you can see where it ends.

And what this is telling
us, on a real short brief,

is that a lot of us
are gonna move away

from our traditional values
and our traditional system.

And you'll see down here,
there's this old gentlemen

with his planting
stick and his plant,

and his plants through here,

and this line
continues to go on.

And so what this is
telling us down here

is that if we if we believe
in our traditional practice

and we pass it on to
the next generation,

we'll be able to continue
on into the next world.

The main reason why we're
having all these barriers

is that Indians have
the right to occupancy,

but they do not have the
title to their own land.

People don't know
that, but we don't.

We're trustees of the
federal government.

And what is this whole ruling
based upon, this big ruling?

It's based upon the
doctrine of discovery.

That means that you
were discovered.

That's our land now.

You can live there,
but we still own it.

So what is indigenous
agricultural knowledge?

What we're saying here is
that it's applied knowledge

for raising food and other
agricultural products

that is grounded in indigenous
belief systems and practices

which have been
time-tested
over millennia.

I removed the word
"a" out of there

because I'm not just
talking just 1,000 years.

I'm talking millennia.

So I'm talking to the
plural for of that,

over 2,000, 10,000 years.

So this is contour farming.

This is what it looks like.

This is keeping soil
erosion from happening

by planting perpendicular.

We've been doing the same thing.

But unfortunately, these are
scientifically validated.

These practices are not, so
we don't get funded for that.

Makes no sense, right?

And I ask myself, well, who
came up with the method first?

(audience laughing)

You know?

2,000 versus 75 years.
I wonder about that.

There's a great guy out
there named Leopold,

and he says that he's the
father of conservation

or someone calling him that.

I said,
"Well, that's your
opinion."

A lot of our knowledge
has already been drafted

and assumed a
different
type of name.

"No till agriculture". We've
been doing that forever.

There's a new one called
"regenerative agriculture".

We've been doing that
forever. (laughing)

Look the pictures right here.

1901, 2015.

Look at the continuity.

It hasn't changed.

You don't see a
$100,000 John Deere

14 row planter out there.

You see little Hopis out there

with their John Deere
hats and a planting stick.

(group laughing)

That's all you need, right?

So this is what my whole
presentation is really about.

It's about our survival.
It's about survival.

It's about moving on
into the next generation

so little kids can hold corn
like this 100 years from now.

With that, I want to thank you.

(audience applauding)

(chattering)

It was a very good
experience for me,

but it was a
very grueling process
at times.

It was almost as
though I had to prove

that our techniques were valid,

that our ancient conservation
techniques worked.

So part of my thing and
part of that whole process

was just bringing
the recognition back

to the people who
originally founded it.

(birds whistling)

- We don't have
perfect knowledge,

we don't have perfect science,

but we've always been adaptive.

I think Menominee's
history has been adaptive

to resource management,
political ideas

and learning how
to deal with them,

but also staying true
to cultural identity.

And that's
the secret of
this place.

This is an ancestral map,
before European settlement.

And this represents about
15 million acres here.

Between 1817 and 1856,
through land secessions...

15 million acres shrank
to 234,000 acres.

Of the 234,000, just about
all of it is managed.

- The federal government,

they felt that the best way
for Menominees to assimilate

into the rest of society
was to become farmers.

But overall, the interest
really wasn't there.

(soft music)

The Menominees, being
woodland people,

their real desire was to
keep their land forested.

And with that being said,

they petitioned with
the federal government

to allow some harvesting

of some of the live
trees on the forest.

(birds whistling)

- Back in 1908,
the Menominee
Tribal Enterprises

was established in Neopit here.

And basically it was put here

to supply jobs for
the Menominee people.

Before the saw mill,

there wasn't very much
opportunities for employment.

All the lumber
that's produced here

comes from the Menominee forest.

Menominee forest is operated

on a sustained yield
management system

actually advised
by Chief Oshkosh.

He advised that if you
start with the rising sun

and you cut to the setting sun

and take only the sick,
dying, and the mature trees,

and when you reach the
end of the reservation

you turn back and cut back,

if you do that, the
trees would last forever.

(birds whistling)

- Right now, currently
there's more standing volume

of timber on the forest now
than there was back in 1854.

So it is possible to have an
economic harvest to deforest.

If you do it in a
sustainable way,

the forest can replace itself
and you're not causing harm.

(chainsaw buzzing)

(tree falling)

(chainsaw buzzing)

(tree falling)

What we're doing in this
section is a red oak salvage.

We've had some problems with
the oak wilt fungus disease.

If there's a damage to
some of the limbs on a tree

the fungus gets in there

and basically kills the
tree within one season.

If you're taking out
your low-quality trees,

your better quality
trees are remaining.

So we have trees on the
forest that are 150, 200,

some even up to 300 years old,
and they're still healthy,

so we don't consider
them for removal.

As far as climate change,

one of the things
that we do here

is we have intensive
forest management,

forest protection
strategy in place.

What we try to do is curb any
outside threats and diseases

such as oak wilt disease.

(soft music)

One of the ways to do that
is to have a diverse forest

with all the pieces there.

On Menominee we have over
33 different tree species,

and we want to maintain that.

Examples would be
our red maple trees.

We have hickory in here.

Nice basswood.

And we have some
of the beech trees

and other species
of aspen is in here.

So it's all a combination
of trees growing.

A lot of what you see
in an industrial forest,

they usually are more concerned
with the value of timber,

whether it be one species,

like for example red pine
plantations in Wisconsin.

You're putting all your
emphasis on one species.

As far as a long-term
health management strategy

it's not a good idea.

Having a diverse stand of
forest like we do on Menominee

is your best defense against
any outside problems like that.

- It's more than just
timber on the forest.

It's more than just the
dollar amount that you get.

The trees offer a whole
bunch of other things

that they don't put value on.

And someday they'll put a value
on what that tree is worth

as far as carbon sequestration,
clean air, clean water,

erosion control, and all the
rest that has no dollar value.

I think Menominees understood
that a long time ago,

because the operations were
created not just to make money

but to create jobs and
to maintain a community.

And you maintain a
healthy community

with all of these other
values into consideration.

(laughing and shouting)

(phone ringing)

- Most companies will always
have a certain tree farm

or something that they have

and that they grow
certain species,

and then they look
at the markets,

and when the market's hot on
this species or that species,

that's what they'll
harvest out of there,

and then they'll put it out.

We don't have that choice.

We operate for the ecology,
for the ecosystems.

So whatever they have planned
for regenerating the forest

is what we get here.

So that's what's
really the unique part

about how this lumber
company operates.

What we do here is we don't
get to choose what's coming in.

The stuff is brought to us.

We have to know how to use it,

and we have to be very creative

as to how we're gonna turn it
over and turn it into money.

We can't operate like the
capitalistic society does.

It was always the land first

(soft music)

- Yeah, the millpond's
been here forever.

I mean, I remember
when I was a kid

swimming across the river
and climbing up on the banks.

We used to jump off of
the log piles years ago

when we were kids.

Obviously we don't allow
that now. (chuckles)

This is pretty much where
the process starts right here

for breaking down
a log into lumber.

(machinery whirring)

A lot of people...

take it for granted that...

we have such a lush,
beautiful forest.

And at the same time
they don't understand

why MTE has these struggles.

We need to take what
the forest gives us,

and we need to make that work.

(machinery whirring)

We're gonna
be here for
another...

seven generations, the
next seven generations.

That's the goal is
to leave something

for our children
and their children.

And it's proven
over time, I think.

If you look at a
satellite image,

you can see the boundaries
of the reservation

just because the lush
forest makes it stand out.

And years ago, the
areas all around us

were wiped out by lumber barons,

just clear-cutting,
wiping it out.

- "Napanoh pemecwan".

That means "flows repeatedly".

It's a description of
everything that's going on

within the environment around
us, the natural environment.

The lifeblood of the forest
is the river we have here.

Everything revolves
around this body of water.

The bad thing is that it
flows in from the north

off of the ag fields, which
picks up a lot of accumulation

of different types of chemicals,
different types of runoff,

both natural and manmade.

The benefits of this forest
that don't get recognized

is this water, this hydrology
is cleaned by the forest.

These benefits spread to
all the counties around us

because of the river systems.

The clean water that they enjoy

is a result of this forest here,

these complete intact
elder communities.

(waves lapping)

(singing in Hawaiian)

- This is the eastern point
of the Big Island of Hawaii.

So we come here for our
sunrise celebrations.

And to honor the creation.

But this would all
be considered part

of religious ceremonies
of the Hawaiians.

And of course, all of these
practices were outlawed,

outlawed and made
criminal here in Hawaii

by the missionaries until 1978.

"He moku he wa'a,
he wa'a he moku."

It means "the island", "moku",

"is a canoe", "wa'a",
"the wa'a is an island".

We think of it as a canoe.

We're in the middle
of the Pacific.

You got to learn to get along.

And everybody's got
to pull for the canoe.

(gentle music)

Agroforestry, contrary
to popular belief,

is far from a new idea;
it's actually the old idea.

People used to live off
tree foods, forest plants.

In Hawaii the system was
called (speaking Hawaiian)

which means "agroforest".

Archibald Menzies, the
botanist and biologist

with George Vancouver in the
original English expeditions,

first recorded in his logs
to the Royal London Society

the fact that he'd seen
agriculture in Hawaii

like he'd never seen
anywhere else before

and that these systems
were more abundant,

more productive than anything
they had ever experienced

around the world.

He also added that the
only thing left to do

is to make plantation
workers out of these people.

The United States, through
the illegal takeover

of Hawaii in 1893 to 1898,

undermined Hawaii's
agricultural capacities.

Hawaii moved into
this raging sugarcane

monocrop production,

as well as pineapple
monocrop production,

wherein they totally
decimated the land.

And organizations like Monsanto,

they got a foothold in
Hawaiian in the 1950s.

These indigenous practices...

disregarded by the Americans
from 1898 to the present day,

have led to the environmental
degradation of Hawaii.

(sawing)

We still have the memory,

and we're working on
trying to reestablish

those food systems.

Food forests are designed to
capture water and hold water.

Food forests
survive in
droughts.

Food forests survive impacts
during the great storm

where agricultural fields in
two-dimensional lines do not.

(soft music)

The relational
interactive
component

of the biology of a
forest is quite different

than a garden or an
agricultural field.

It was important that we work
with a residential zoning

so that any experimentation
would be applicable

to a household in Honolulu,

in the larger, more metropolitan

or suburban areas of the state.

We're looking at trying
to positively impact

single-family dwellings

around food security
and food preparedness

in an emergency situation

for either a man-made
or a natural disaster.

(soft music)

When you look out over
the central plain,

the northern central
plain of the island,

these plains were once
covered with food forests

and forest with timber
trees as high as 100 feet.

These uplands were turned
over to some Englishmen

who brought
in Scottish
cattlemen.

They simply brought
degradation to these lands,

and they called this success.

(drizzling)

(chattering)

(raining)

(faucet running)

- Basically, we're
trying to revive

many of the practices of old

and getting people
to realize that...

not everything is instantaneous

like going to the supermarket
and getting your food.

It takes time.

Right now we have a group
harvesting kalo, which is taro.

Food forestry for me would be
integrating different crops

in...

family property,

so that you're not
raising just the one item

that you would want
for your family.

On our property with
my grandparents,

we have the kalo,
the breadfruit.

We also had bananas.

Several varieties of bananas.

A little bit of everything.

(soft music)

This right here,

this is 'olena.

To us it's 'olena,
but that's turmeric.

Right here.

This one has a
blossom and that's part of the
ginger family.

So there's
your breadfruit
right there.

You can see some of the young
fruits starting in on it.

And the uhi, or yam...

is that vine that's
creeping up on the tree.

They're
actually working with
each other.

(birds chirping)

So you can see the
diverse planting.

So you've got the wauke,
the paper Mulberry.

Right here we've got
tea, the tea plants.

And we've got the breadfruit.

Bananas.

We had what was known
as the Breadfruit Belt,

which ran for a good 20 miles.

It was at least a
half a mile wide.

But then with the
coffee industry,

a lot of those trees
were taken down.

I think the differences
with monocropping

is you've just got this one
crop for acres and acres.

When I was growing up

and my grandparents
got into coffee,

there wasn't what we know
now is a coffee borer bug.

You lose your crop
or a good percentage.

And we believe that could
possibly happen to other crops,

possibly breadfruit.

That once you get
an infection in

and that's the only thing
that's growing on your property,

it's gonna go from one street
to the next to the next.

And pretty soon the entire
field could be infiltrated.

Whereas with the old...

the old systems where you had...

more diverse crops in
between your major,

say like the breadfruit.

It's supporting each other.

So you've got other
crops coming in

at different times of the year.

(soft music)

- The American industrial
complex spent 130 years

ruining the capacity of
the Native Americans,

all in an attempt to create
genocide on a group of people.

So it's time for the
United States to own up

to what it's been
responsible for

and to honor the
ways of the people

who were on the land before you

and incorporate those ways
into our everyday living.

(chattering)

(radio static crackling)

(chattering)

- Is that saw back here still?

- Oh, where did...

Rodney put it on
one of the trucks.

- [Man] He's probably
got it in mine.

- In California in a lot
of places, there is this...

there's a lot of fear around
fire, prescribed fire,

even fire in general,
and rightfully so.

It's understandable.

In a lot of
our teachings
traditionally

you build an understanding
around the world around you,

and you learn how to live
with fire and work with fire.

And it helps you, the
more you know about it,

the less fear that you have.

(soft music)

- The forest service is
starting to hear the land

screaming back at you.

Everything's burning up.
Hey, you got to do something.

You can't just control
everything like that.

You can't just take it over
and say nobody can touch this.

And you can't just tell
us that we can't do

what we've been doing
here for a long time.

'Cause it's gonna
mess everything up.

So we're all fix
the world people,

and we have ceremonies for that.

So we as K-1 firefighters
have this role.

When we come out on the
hill, we have a big job to do

as far as respecting
the place that we're in.

So that acorn stands come back,

or so that hazels
come back good,

or any basket making materials,

any issues that have
to do with safety

and where you're living at.

It's all revolving
around your family,

and that's our
perspective on it.

(soft music)

- Wind speed zero to two

from the
south southeast and
variable.

(gentle music)

- These trees are all
fire-adapted trees

burning from the
beginning of time.

They become a fire
adapted forest.

Most of our gathering
materials are medicines.

The redwoods and some
of the pines and stuff

require fire to go through them

in order to open up and
deposit their seeds.

You can start to see the
difference in the trees.

You see it as we start
going through here,

we're gonna get these
indicator species

to tell us what
we're doing right.

The giant salamander.

I've seen species
that I'd never seen

on the river before,
except in our burn units

after we burned them.

It's pretty cool.

Add 'em up!

- [Men] Holding.

(chattering)

(fire crackling)

- That's the desired
effects right here.

You see how it's all along
the bed of the forest?

Consuming the leaf litter
and the dead and down,

not affecting the trees
too much right there.

Doing good work.

And the more prescribed
fire we get on the ground

around our communities,
the safer we are.

You take away
the available
fuel loading,

when wildfire comes around,
there's not that fuel loading

to just feed it in a
rip uncontrollably.

When it hits these areas
that have been treated,

there's not enough fuel
to feed that wildfire,

and it'll go out and these
areas, and we can defend that.

(soft music)

When it's opened up like this,
elders can still come in here

and collect those
resources right there.

And if they can't get in there,

share that knowledge with the
kids, it gets lost in time.

So when we can open stuff up,

they can get in here and
teach the younger generations

the traditional practices,
and they can get in there

and harvest those cultural
and natural resources,

that knowledge never gets lost,

just keeps recycling
and repeating itself,

and it's all good work.

(chattering)

(clapping)

- Forest service!

CIBA

Karuk Tribe

Parks, national parks.

(clapping)

- Following the
Smoke started out,

it started with the
group basket weavers.

And they joined together
and were having issues

with getting better
quality materials.

So Following the Smoke came
from following the smoke

by where it was burnt.

So if you went following
the areas of the burn,

you were following the
smoke, and then we were able

to use those
materials
from there,

'cause the harvesting from
those particular materials

is a lot stronger for us.

Grows stronger,
grows straighter.

And we use 'em
for different like
baby baskets

for the hazel sticks,

so it has to be something strong

that we're gonna
keep our baby in

(chattering)

- [Woman] Shorter sticks
and your longer sticks,

and you'll go through this
process that I'm doing right now

which is just peeling it back,

because what you want to do

is you want to match those
peeled back ends together.

So if you
look closely at
this basket

you'll see that,
down the center,

there's actually
two sticks there,

and they're just kind of joined.

And I will purposefully
try to maneuver the sticks

so that they're laid flat.

- The fire for the
bear grass is also

comes back a lot stronger

If we go pick the
year after a fire.

It's stronger for our baskets.

So any of the color
in our baskets,

it'll come
back quite a bit
stronger,

and we can pull on it to
make our baskets finer,

finer work with that.

It's really important
while we pick and burn

that we're doing it culturally,

that we're doing
it in our prayers

before we go out and pick.

And that medicine goes
into when we leave it,

the medicine goes in it
when we have our baby in it,

so it all serves a purpose.

(chattering)

(rocks tapping)

It was probably maybe since
I was a baby that I ate them.

I just always remember
loving acorns.

We eat the tan oak.

They're the sweetest
out of all of the acorns

(gentle music)

(chattering)

Long, long, long,
long, long time ago,

very beginning of us,
we didn't have pots

and pans like this, or
the propane cook stove.

So we had to figure out how
we were gonna cook our food,

and this is how we cook it.

And there's nutrients
that come from the rocks.

It's acorn soup.

(fire crackling)

(gentle music)

- So really world
renewal ceremonies,

we don't really look
at it as religion.

We look at our survival.

And what are you
doing to survive

on this landscape over time?

You're managing it.

(crickets chirping)

Look at the ears on
this one right here.

They're starting to really
come out right here.

So this was planted in July,

and in another week or so
I'll be at a harvest these

and take them home
and eat these ones.

But that's a healthy
plant right there.

This is about a 160 days
without having any rain.

(soft music)

Our farming is deep into
our spiritual beliefs.

When we don't farm,

you have the loss of
the nutritional benefits

of all the crops we
produce out here.

The fact of the
matter is the women,

they don't have the stuff
to make the piki in.

(bright guitar music)

They don't have the
traditional crops needed

to put on the table.

(chattering)

There was a
dissertation
looking at

some of the feelings we
have when we don't farm.

And a lot of it
was
psychological.

And when you're not out here
working the land and your farm

and being a true steward, you
lose your sense of balance.

It's almost like all
these plants out here,

they've
become like my
counselor.

You know what I mean?

I'm able to talk to
them and speak to them,

and they show me things.

And so I'm not dependent
upon, like I used to be,

I used to drink a hell of a lot.

I don't do that no more.

Native people who have these
substance abuse problems

is a direct result
of being relocated,

losing their livelihood,
forgetting who they are,

and they go in to find
something to fill those voids

that would've otherwise
been filled by hunting,

by raising things.

Now that they don't have that
or they move away from that,

you have these big problems
on reservations now,

whereas if you were to use
these traditional systems,

you're able to plug
all those voids in.

All that loss of identity
that was taken away from you,

you're able to bring it back.

But we need to do it
sooner rather than later,

because once we forget these
things, then we forget them.

- When do we want it? - Now!

- What do we want? - Change!

- When do we want it? - Now!

- What do we want? - Change!

- People today are all
excited about climate change

and rightfully so.

People are rising up and
panicking in a sense.

They recognize
that this is
not sustainable.

That's a good thing that that's
happening, that reaction,

but it's gonna be imperative,
and it is imperative,

that these people
in these movements

that are beginning to grow...

look for and accept guidance
from indigenous people

who know how to...

adapt and respond to a
changing environment.

And we're still doing it today.

And we will continue to do it.

We say until the stars...

fall.

(moving instrumental music)

(passionate percussion music)

(singing in foreign language)